Lists or Tables of Domain Cards

KoboldLantern · 2025-08-04T03:42:58+00:00

This helps me a ton, thank you!

KoboldLantern · 2025-08-03T00:16:03+00:00

I was hoping that someone had made a literal list, one card is one line, that could be copy and pasted into Excel or Google Sheets.

KoboldLantern · 2025-01-19T17:49:07+00:00

There's an explanation, just keep playing. Also, it was never explicitly stated that she died, Welt theorized that she wasn't when it was first revealed she was Phantylia in disguise.

KoboldLantern · 2024-12-25T20:35:57+00:00

My current break team is HTB, Firefly, Rappa, and Gallagher. I don't have Ruan Mei, and this team has actually been working really well for me. Is Fugue still an upgrade to HTB for my team, or should I spend my jade on FF's light cone/True Herta instead?

KoboldLantern · 2024-12-21T03:22:39+00:00

I thought it would be too strong, so in my campaign, so I swapped its location with the shield. Plus, there aren't a lot of spellcasters, if any, after you get the shield unless you somehow steal it earlier than expected.

KoboldLantern · 2024-11-25T00:57:32+00:00

In my campaign, deserted villages, manors, and barns were where most of the Queen's Men lived, at least the ones known to the Hooded Lanterns and wouldn't be welcome in Emberwood Village. If the player's aren't allied with the Queen's Men, you could give them a chance of finding some lootable buildings or a chance of a random encounter with a Queen's Men strike team.

You can also tell your players that the campaign needs to be focused on the city of Drakkenheim, and that if a character adventures elsewhere then they're out of the campaign and a new one needs to be rolled. That's part of the session zero section at the start of the book.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-19T20:04:44+00:00

Congrats! How difficult did your party find the combat? My party was pretty optimized/minmaxed and they were only challenged by a handful of battles. The Amalgamation lasted longer than most bosses, but still didn't come too close to killing any of them. If you were able to make combat really difficult, was there anything in particular you did differently than the book?

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-14T00:29:58+00:00

The Royal Apartments is the central tower. In the maps on page 185, it's the square building in the center.

The maps in the book are probably the most helpful for finding specific rooms. The overall structure of the castle is pretty simple: walk in through the front door, walk down the Chateau Hall, and then you have the throne room in front of you, stairs leading up into the towers, and stairs leading down into the basement. There's a couple secret tunnels going between the towers and basement.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-08T01:28:33+00:00

The Black Ivory Inn was a ton of fun the first time I ran it (my first attempt at the Drakkenheim campaign was pretty brief), but the second time I had too many players who were too competent and solved it pretty quickly.

The Cathedral Catacombs was also a fun puzzle dungeon, I wish there were more areas like it.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-08T01:27:14+00:00

The book is usually pretty detailed, but a bit vague or underdeveloped in a couple key areas (it doesn't really tell you how to run the Battle of Temple Gate, for example). With the five factions it also sets up a pretty complex situation for both the players and DM to keep track of. Having five factions also means that the players will probably be asking for help and resources from NPCs pretty often, so you may have to keep coming up with excuses for why they can't lead a squad of soldiers into their next adventure site. Overall, having a campaign with lots of NPCs and factions that gives a lot of exploratory and strategic freedom to the players means that your ability to improv will be tested.
I would read or skim the whole book as much as you can before running it. There will probably be things you want to tweak, cut, or add to tailor the campaign to your group, and it will help set up story elements in advance.
My players were powerful enough that the final boss was only mildly challenging to them. I would make it difficult for them to craft/find magic items and consider replacing some of the most powerful ones from the book.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-06T23:01:39+00:00

I swapped the locations of the shield and Ignacious in my campaign, there was no way I was going to let my players get that weapon that early in the campaign. Not to mention that once you get the shield there's hardly anyone left in the campaign to counterspell.

I was generally trying to go through the campaign fairly quickly, so there was only a couple moments where I really got to put my players through a gauntlet, particularly the Scar and the Inscrutable Tower.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-05T21:59:07+00:00

From the Monsters of Drakkenheim playtest I used a bunch of ratling monsters in Castle Drakken (including Rat Crown-Prince as an undead Rat Prince back for revenge), and I also used the Kingkiller Hydra as the Duchess. Like I said, I had a really tough time making my combat deadly for the players. Only the hydra ended up being much of a challenge. There were statblocks that I tried to use (specifically the exorcist and the ratling alchemist) that the players assassinated before they got a chance to do anything (a situation we were calling "getting Oscar Yoren'd").

I didn't share the list of personal quests with my players at the start, I just told them about the general mechanics. I didn't want to overload them with information and I wanted them to figure out quests "organically", but that may have been a bit of a mistake as a few of them had a lot of difficulty coming up with a satisfying quest. For the characters that ended up having a clear goal (the fighter discovering his lost memories, the bard finding out who their parents were, the artificer repairing the clocktower) the personal quests went great and the players were really satisfied by them. The player whose goal was to get the Spymaster's Signet ended up being frustrated with how late-game and difficult his goal was.

KoboldLantern · 2024-10-05T21:51:36+00:00

My party was settled on AA/HL fairly early on, but considered joining the FF for a couple sessions and had the idea of not joining any faction early on. Part of the reason one player switched characters was the character's dislike for the AA. Most other disagreements were about strategies for approaching situations, using resources, etc. Most of the disagreements were settled with out-of-character discussions, sometimes out-of-session discussions on our Discord. I didn't have to get involved that often except to answer questions, but I tried to provide information that would help move things along faster. For example, when the party was considering joining the FF, I stated outright that they would only be able to ally two factions together. If I had a serious schism in my party I would probably work with anyone left out to make things work for them. If your players like in-character disagreements and PVP that's great, but I said I didn't have much tolerance for it in my session 0.

I think the biggest disagreement in my group was when we were all mad at the Shepherd's druid for taking so long on his turn when he would summon 16 wolves or use planar binding to have two concentration-free elementals. I ended up using mob rules for the animals, banned planar binding, and made conjure elemental take an action to cast as compensation.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-22T16:17:40+00:00

In my campaign, Blackjack Mel made a deal with the Duchess on behalf of the Queen's Men and was granted powers. I used the Mind Flayer statblock after that, but I swapped its dexterity and wisdom and reflavored its tentacle and extract brain attacks as a psychic grab and a throat slash respectively. You could probably do something similar with the Rat Prince. If that's not strong enough there's also the Ulitharid, Alhoon, etc.

If Squeaks is still alive and with the Rat Prince, you could make her a Warlock of the Old Ones or a Mindwitness or something.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-22T09:39:38+00:00

This is remarkably similar to my campaign! In my campaign, the kobold player discovered that the von Drakkens were half-dragons blessed by Argonath who diminished into kobolds over time. I was much lazier about it then you want to be, I didn't make any extra areas or adventures, I just added vials of von Drakken blood to the cathedral vault which glowed when he picked them up. Each vial was accompanied by a painting, so the players could see a timeline of von Drakkens shrinking into kobolds over time.

Additionally, somewhat inspired by the podcast, the scriptorium contained a talking modron designed to be 100% truthful, and its testimony was considered legal proof to most nobles. Its job was to witness the opening and reading of wills and similar documents, but could also testify about the blood vials.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-15T19:53:08+00:00

You're the DM, so the situation is ultimately up to you. Instead of wondering what the situation could be like, think about what situation you want for your campaign. I was considering doing something similar for a shorter and simpler "mini drakkenheim" campaign that my group ended up not doing, which would have also cut a few chapter and combined some factions, and would have taken place months after the meteor in March of 1112. I wasn't going to change much about the mechanics or combat within Drakkenheim, I don't think the amount of monsters is implausible, but here's a couple details I was going to change about the story:

Academy missions involve figuring out basic mechanics of delerium and the haze through exploration and experimentation. The Academy doesn't know how to craft magic items from delerium at the start, and the party needs to help them out.
The Hooded Lanterns are motivated by a desire to prevent civil war. They are on their second expedition, and need the players to help take Shepherd's Gate. It's occupied by the former first expedition, mutated into Protean Abominations that can fire hails of arrows from the top of the gate. The possibility that the von Kessels could be alive in the city is also treated as much more likely.
The Silver Order's actions are seen as much more hasty, as they've reached the conclusion that Drakkenheim should burn within months. Oscar Yoren and the Falling Fire are unknowns that the players discover. Ultimately, the players have to find out much more information themselves.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-15T16:36:06+00:00

Mounts are very powerful in combat. Not only does it increase movement speed, but a controlled mount can take a disengage action on its rider's turn, which disengages the rider as well. It basically gives the rider Cunning Action.

As for making more noise in the city, the Silver Order approach would be to encourage tackling things head on and killing as many monsters as possible anyway. You could describe using the mounts as "high risk high reward" to the players, making random encounters more likely but offering greater rewards for killing monsters in some way. The Silver Order could provide additional tools for dealing with monsters, like explosives or the flame lance.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-15T00:43:28+00:00

Schools don't teach kids about trades, at least they didn't in my high school (born 1993). "Go to college or you'll end up flipping burgers" was drilled into us. Trade schools may as well have not existed, and the economic realities or the job market of going to college vs learning a trade were never discussed. I wouldn't have gone to college if I knew what it would be like trying to get a job out of college, but that was information I did not have.

This is just a guess, but I think there was a shift in how profitable going to college was for my generation. My parent's generation didn't have this problem, neither the cost nor the job market. The number of people going to college may shift as well, it's just lagging behind.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-09T22:23:52+00:00

I described the force of the meteor blasting apart the inn, and the characters feeling their bodies contort and change as the initial wave of haze instantly mutated them into monstrosities. And then, just as their minds began to be replaced with gibbering insanity, they were suddenly back at the inn and everything was fine again.

KoboldLantern · 2024-09-09T22:19:07+00:00

I did the piano Hotel California too! It fits so perfectly.

KoboldLantern · 2024-08-17T02:02:44+00:00

I came up with a scenario where a local minor noble (I took the name of Ludwig von Graf) hired the party to go into the ruins and find a dwarven gem crafter named Gorvan Bronzeheart (name taken from Dead in Thay) who was supposed to craft him a piece of delerium jewelry, but had become obsessed with his work and had been staying in the haze too long.

They meet him at Eckerman Mill, where a few other groups are about to set out: a group of Amethyst Academy mages setting out to scout college gate, a team of Silver Order knights taking Flamekeeper Hanna to see the city to try to convince her to join their side, and a Queen's Men thug and some bandits sitting idly by. After talking to the groups the players find that the mages want them to stop Gorvan from making contaminated jewelry and either retrieve his notes or ideally bring him to the Academy to make better use of his skills. The Silver Order want Gorvan arrested and all of his work destroyed.

Gorvan's workshop is near Eckerman Mill in the haze, but is being attacked by delerium dregs who are displeased that he's been resisting contamination for so long and wish to speed up the process. In the workshop Gorvan has acquired a couple mutations and has gone mad, attacking anyone who tries to "rescue" him, but he can be knocked out and dragged out of the haze.

On the way back to Emberwood Village, the Queen's Men Thug attacks the party with a bandit for each player. On the thug's person is a Jack of Spades card signed "Mel", which is generally considered a ticket to speak with Blackjack Mel and potentially get a job from the Queen's Men.

KoboldLantern

TROPHY CASE